Archive for December 2013

One woman came through the door saying:”you prayed for me last time I was here!” I said: “I pray for lots of people; can you remind me?” It gradually dawned on me who she was. She had been running away from an abusive partner that day and knew no-one in our town. She was so grateful for what she received last time that she asked today for more prayer. We held hands and she got a friend with her to join with us. She said afterwards her new male friend was looking out for her, but he had his own problems. The other day he said to her “cuddle me”. She did, and he explained afterwards that he wanted to be held because he’d been hearing voices in his head telling him to kill her.

We gave out many food parcels to hungry clients today, enough to feed 74 people for three days. In addition to normal food, we added bags of Christmas food as a Christmas bonus. People were thrilled.

One woman was gently trembling and told us she was suffering from various injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder following a car accident. Her car had been stationary when she was hit from behind by a car travelling at 40 mph. I offered healing prayer to her, which in reality turned out to be me just holding her hands while I shared other healings I’d seen Jesus do. She was grateful. I suggested she come back again if she wanted a top-up.

What a privilege and honour God has given me to minister to people in various states of distress and suffering!

A young woman with a 7 week old baby told me she was looking forward to marrying her partner soon. They’d been sweethearts since she was 14. She needed to save up the £145 or so to get married. She really touched my heart! I asked for her address – which she gave me – as I said I’d drop her a card.

Yesterday a woman I recognised came in for food. She used to be a street drinker with a big alcohol problem. I previously nicknamed her “Las Vegas” as that’s where she’s from.

In the last year she’s really lifted herself up from the depths and now attends college, doing a couple of A level courses, with a view to a degree eventually in some kind of animal husbandry. She was pretty tired and in pain so I offered to pray. She accepted, so I called over a lady on our team. We prayed for a couple of minutes, until her little girl came over and interrupted. “Las Vegas” said : “I was really peaceful when you guys prayed – thanks a lot.”

Today I was out in town with our Healing On The Streets team and had several conversations with passers-by. I met two Spiritualists: one was a woman who said she was a Spiritualist healer. I acknowledged that she had good motives in her heart, but gently explained to her that the Bible forbids spiritism and contact with the dead . Her reply was that men wrote the Bible, not God. I asked her “who is Jesus?” She wouldn’t accept that he was God made flesh, so that was as far as we got.

The next Spiritualist was a Reiki healer, Level 3, which he said was the highest you can get. I told him of a woman who came to see me who had received Reiki healing from some guy. After one Reiki session she started hearing voices that said they were her dead mother and father. Sadly, the voices eventually turned nasty, in a way unlike her real parents so she was troubled and confused. From what I read Reiki definitely has Eastern Buddhist occult origins and should be steered clear of, even so-called “Christian Reiki” which is a contradiction in terms.

In my post on 19th October I recounted how I’d offered prayer to a team member who had a problem with a ligament on her leg. After praying she had signs of healing, but said she’d report back in due course. A few weeks later I saw her and she said: “have your ears been burning?”. I said “no, why?” She replied: “I’ve been telling people at my church – if they want healing to come to you!”. She went on to say that her ligament problem had indeed gone. I assured her that Jesus was the healer; I’m just the instrument. But it’s wonderful being the instrument!!

On the theme of healing, I recall reading of a Christian man called John G Lake who set up a healing ministry team in the USA in the early 1900’s – in Seattle I think. If you wanted to join his healing team you were assigned a patient suffering from a terminal illness. You had 30 days with the person to minister healing. If you got the person healed in the allotted 30 days, you were allowed to join the healing team. If they died……………..

Makes me think how few people are prepared to go for long term healing prayer. In my experience, if no results are seen from healing prayer after a few minutes most folk go off and consider it a failure. Yet if these same people were prescribed a course of pills – one a day for 28 days – they would normally persevere and finish the course of pills!